Church of the Holy Japanese Martyrs

A small 20th-century church on the seafront with one truly distinctive feature: the interior is covered floor to ceiling with frescoes and mosaics by the Japanese Catholic artist Luca Hasegawa, depicting the martyrdoms of 1597 and other scenes of early Japanese Christianity. The style fuses Italian religious painting with Japanese woodblock-print sensibilities — figures with Asian features, kimonos, and Japanese landscape backgrounds.

It is an unusual and moving small space, and a five-minute walk from the cruise terminal. Open during church hours; sometimes closed in the middle of the day. Free.

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A story
Twenty-six Christians — six European Franciscan missionaries and twenty Japanese converts — were crucified at Nagasaki on 5 February 1597 by order of the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the first of Japan's long campaign against Christianity. The church in Civitavecchia is one of very few worldwide dedicated to them, and the only one decorated in this East-meets-West fusion style. The link to Civitavecchia comes via the samurai-diplomat Hasekura Tsunenaga, who landed at the port on his 1615 papal mission and is commemorated by a statue nearby.

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